When You Miss A Goal

May 31, 2015 / Amanda / Leave a comment

Today is the day!

At approximately 8:20am the 25-29 women’s age group began the swim in Jordan Lake for Ironman Raleigh 70.3.

And I wasn’t there.

And it sucks.

It sucks because I set a goal for myself and didn’t reach it. It sucks because I spent months training for it. It sucks because I spent what little extra money I have on it. It sucks because I won’t get that awesome race high/bling/post race euphoria.

But it’s ok.

It’s ok because I chose grad school over this one race. It’s ok because I can enjoy my vacation without feeling exhausted. It’s ok because I’m not going to injure myself by racing hard.

But most importantly it’s ok because this was just one race. There are so many more races I can do that will fit my schedule better right now. So, for the time being, I am putting my long distance triathlon dreams on hold. I can’t spend 8 hrs on a bike every Saturday because I have to spend those 8 hrs rebuilding a 3D printer. I can however, work on a new 5k PR, training for the USA Nationals Half Marathon in November, and improving my olympic distance triathlon PR.

Not to mention I got a brag-worthy shirt and awesome backpack out of it too.

Return From The Void

May 24, 2015 / Amanda / Leave a comment

Hello faithful blog readers!

We are just now getting a minor amount of sanity back after the site visit void. For the last couple of weeks, Steve and I have been working some insane hours to get things ready for the ASSIST 3rd year review from NSF. While we get reviewed every year, the 3rd and 6th years are key review years where NSF determines if they will continue our funding. AKA everything breaks and shit hits the ceiling over the span of 12 hrs

Needless to say, the blog has been a little neglected. So has most every other aspect of our lives (sorry Indy). So, even though the site visit shenanigans finished up on Thursday, we have spent the last two days sleeping, spending time with Indy, and doing normal shit like grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, etc.

As goes with the whole working 15 hrs days for 2 straight weeks thing, my Ironman Raleigh 70.3 training has been GREAT! Wait….that was meant to say nonexistent. I went for a 2 mile run yesterday and thought I was going to die for most of it. Partly from lack of sleep and partly from lack of working out for 2.5 weeks. This means I’m not sure if I’m actually going to do the race. I don’t feel prepared and I’m still recovering from lack of sleep and extremely high levels of stress. I’ve decided to take it one day at a time and see how I feel morning of.

On a happy note, all the work and struggles and sleepless nights and broken equipment and last minute panic was worth it because the ASSIST Center passed our 3rd year review with UNANIMOUS AND UNCONDITIONAL TERMS! Basically we were perfect and have raised the bar for what NSF expects of their engineering research centers. We were all so excited that we went to the only place that serves alcoholic beverages on campus, the golf course!

Please ignore the look of crazed exhaustion/delirium that’s on our faces. We are actually super happy.

In other exciting news, Indy has learned how to ~~jump~~ faceplant off a dock! It only took us actually throwing her into the lake about 5 times before she got the hang of it 🙂

Maybe one day she’ll get the hang of it. Until then we will continue to post embarrassing pictures of her faceplanting into the water and she will continue to silently resent us 🙂

Have a great Memorial Day!

Confessions of a Triathlete

May 5, 2015 / Amanda / Leave a comment

Hi guys! I woke up pretty convinced that today was Thursday and am now wondering why there are two days of the week that start with the letter ‘T’. Waaaay too confusing.

Anyways, here’s my latest training update for Raleigh 70.3!

Wait for it….

yep! That just about covers it!

May is hell. I hate May. It’s the month of EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DONE RIGHT NOW AND PERFORM AND RECITAL AND EXAMS AND RACE AND HOLIDAYS AND PROJECT DEADLINES AND…..ok so I’ve run out of things. But seriously, it’s the month that our ERC has our annual site visit where NSF (the National Science Foundation) visits and lets us know if they’ll continue sending exorbitant amounts of money our way to fund our super cool research, aka let’s sit in a windowless room for 2 days and listen to people with no sense of humor talk about things you know nothing about.

This means that even though Raleigh 70.3 is in 26 days, I did not work out once last week. Thanks to the grad school hullabaloo and the fact that we are getting ready to move and getting ready to go to Europe for 2 weeks, I have not had any remaining energy to spend on training.

And that’s ok.

It’s not ideal. Sometimes you read articles about how triathletes are super dedicated to their sport and wake up at 4am to get a swim in. It’s inspiring and all, but it’s not reasonable. I will almost always choose sleep over a workout because I need that mental energy to stay on top of my game at school and that physical energy to keep up with the professor walk. So in some ways, I don’t feel like a ‘real’ triathlete.

<–Total side note here. Professors and people in academia walk SUPER fast everywhere. Not sure why. Maybe they’re always late. IDK. But I usually have to jog to keep up with the brisk pace that is the standard here. Also also, hallways are dangerous places and collisions are highly likely —>

Real triathlete or not, it’s ok. I’m not shooting to be an elite athlete and qualify for the World Championship. I’m going out there to push my physical and mental limits and I can accomplish that with the amount of training I currently have. So even though my training looks like this….

I will finish the race and maybe even beat my time from last year. Who knows.

Gotta be baller at the grad school thing first!

Happiness is…

May 4, 2015May 4, 2015 / thievinsteven / Leave a comment

Happiness is finding out that the x-ray was misleading and your dog does NOT have a mass in her abdomen. After that you can take great delight making fun of her shaved stomach.

and taking her to food truck rodeos where she can meet tons of new people to be terrified of.

It turns out Indy’s stomach symptoms were likely caused by allergic gastritis and she’s doing much better now. She also did great with the crowds at the rodeo. We enjoyed ceviche taco appetizers, an amazing black bean burger from Rolling Bistro, and some frozen pops for dessert. It was a much needed break from the non-stop grind our life has been lately… Just four more weeks of madness to go.

Happiness is the end of May 😀